The morning of 9/11 I was working downtown on Maiden Lane. By chance I brought my digital camera to work because I was going to go look at apartments later that afternoon. When the first plane hit we heard a big boom. We looked out the window and saw paper falling and black smoke. A co-worker and I decided to walk up the street past the Federal Reserve to Broadway to get a better view. As we asked people what had happened and there were all kinds of conflicting accounts. The general consensus was that a small plane had mistakenly crashed into the Trade Center.

Standing on Broadway I pulled my camera out, pointed it up towards the sky, and this is what I caught. After the explosion panic struck and everyone started to run. At this point I don't think I realized that my camera was still recording. Had this been 2011 I'm sure there would have been lots of iPhones that would have caught this moment.

I've held off posting the video for years. It is disturbing but it feels like a small piece of history and a reminder of how quickly life changed for many, many people. It was a surreal feeling having an entire country so deeply connected to a single point in time.